Re: MD Relations between levels
Dear Lawry, Your 27/6 17:51 -0400 post should be an evaluation of my analogy Biological/Social/Intellectual evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic/subcellular/individual level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic/biological/social forces at a superatomic/supercellular/collective level (That's what I asked for at least.) You write Static patterns can control systems at all levels, big or small, individual or collective. A subsystem may be the place where dynamic change is launched upon the larger system to which it belongs, or dynamic change can be initiated at the level of the system-as-a-whole, and imposed upon its parts, including those parts that would prefer to remain static. This seems to me to only list logical alternatives without evaluating which is most real or most Meaningful (in your experience). I am not clear how your systems relate to my levels, either. Do you understand biological patterns to be a subsystem of social patterns and social patterns to be a subsystem of intellectual patterns or the other way round? Or, if you understand systems to be on one level only: What is the source of the Dynamic? Why would either a subsystem or the system-as-a-whole want to change if it is subject to the same laws as the rest of the level? Do you mean to say that biological/social/intellectual evolution can be driven by Dynamic forces at any level below or on the biological/social/intellectual level itself? That would mean that biological evolution (the breaking up of biological patterns of value and the creation of new and better ones) can be driven by biological organisms' drive to live? That would mean that social evolution (the breaking up of social patterns of value and the creation of new and better ones) can be driven by the human drive for status (depending on furthering the collective good)? That would mean that intellectual evolution (the breaking of intellectual patterns of value and the creation of new and better ones) can be driven by individuals' drive for truth (true representation of an external or internal world)? Maybe that's right, but I am not sure if that accounts for the creation of better static patterns of value, patterns of value that create more freedom from the next lower level. The drive to live would need to have some consciousness of the inorganic level to know how to distance itself from it. The drive for status would need to have some consciousness of the biological level and the drive for truth some consciousness of the social level. In other words: these drives would derive some itself (part of the drive) from a lower level. I don't think that accounts for how biological/social/intellectual evolution originate. They can't originate in their own level, because that does not exist yet. They can't originate in the next lower level, for that is what they are freeing and distancing themselves from. So they must originate two levels lower. With friendly greetings, Wim Nusselder
Re: MD Relations between levels
Dear Dan, You wrote 28/6 1:13 -0500: If you really want my advice, yes. Give up your pursuit [of Dynamic Quality]. It has been my experience that the 'spirit' which we believe we pursue will find us more righteous unaware. Just do [static] good. I agree. The religions I value all teach this. God seeks us, just let yourself be found. Just do [static] good. also amounts to You free yourself from static patterns by putting them to sleep. That is, you master them with such proficiency that they become an unconscious part of your nature. You get so used to them you completely forget them and they are gone. There in the center of the most monotonous boredom of static ritualistic patterns the Dynamic freedom is found. (Lila ch. 30). So pursuing Dynamic Quality should be understood in the limited sense of being ready for it when it occurs, not identifying overmuch with static patterns of value so Dynamic Quality when it finds us won't be experienced only as a threat to static good and be filtered away from our conscious experience. As I quoted from Quaker advises in my 29/6 23:37 +0200 post to John: Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come? With friendly greetings, Wim Nusselder
Re: MD Relations between levels
From: Wim Nusselder [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: MD Relations between levels Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 22:12:29 +0200 I would still like to know to what extent my analogy Biological/Social/Intellectual evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic/subcellular/individual level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic/biological/social forces at a superatomic/supercellular/collective level. is still a valuable reflection of 'reality' (intellectual pattern) and/or a meaningful insight in your opinion. Hi Wim I found this quote which seems to be pertinent to our topic of discussion: just as the quantum of action appears in the account of atomic phenomena as an element for which an explanation is neither possible nor required, the notion of life is elementary in biological science (Neils Bohr) Seen as discrete yet continuous levels, the quantum of action as inorganic moral force, life as biological moral force, and celebrity (see Lila) as social moral force require no explanation nor is one possible. I am not quite sure my mind wraps entirely around your analogy but it seems you are attempting to reduce the irreducible. How wrong am I? Dan _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
Re: MD Relations between levels
Hello everyone From: Wim Nusselder [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: MD Relations between levels Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 22:12:29 +0200 Dear Dan, In your 26/6 17:37 -0500 post you counter my disappointment in Pirsig (He ... 'closes up an opening to attack' on his MoQ when interpreted as merely an intellectual pattern of value, but leaves countless others. In the process it widens the chasm between the empirical and rational modes of knowing ... and the spiritual mode of knowing) with a story with the moral (in your interpretation) Sometimes ... it is best simply to rejoice in what you have been given.. So I should give up (at least this time) my pursuit of spiritual knowledge and my hope of using the MoQ as a vehicle and be content with the MoQ as merely an intellectual pattern of value? I'm afraid I can't and (as I have argued in the Religion/God ~ MoQ/DQ-thread) I think no human being can be fully human without jumping to the moon(s) of DQ/God in one way or another. Hi Wim If you really want my advice, yes. Give up your pursuit. It has been my experience that the spirit which we believe we pursue will find us more righteous unaware. Just do good. I would still like to know to what extent my analogy Biological/Social/Intellectual evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic/subcellular/individual level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic/biological/social forces at a superatomic/supercellular/collective level. is still a valuable reflection of 'reality' (intellectual pattern) and/or a meaningful insight in your opinion. This requires a bit of pondering. I'd like to see what others might have to say and perhaps consult a couple sources. We will see what develops. You write Sorry for the confusion, but sometimes one must work for answers. I could attempt to answer your questions but that would do either of us little good. We'd just get into a debate. You must answer them for yourself, as must we all. Isn't a debate (including exchange of experience and stories) a way of working for answers together? I will find my own answers in due course and will try to explain them to you then, but wouldn't it be 'better' to work for and reach them together? Of course you are right. Most times I read what's written here and grow confused as well. Notice I said I could attempt to answer your questions but I seriously doubt I could do so adequately, hence my reticence I suppose. Take care Dan _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
RE: MD Relations between levels
Greetings, Wim, Static patterns can control systems at all levels, big or small, individual or collective. A subsystem may be the place where dynamic change is launched upon the larger system to which it belongs, or dynamic change can be initiated at the level of the system-as-a-whole, and imposed upon its parts, including those parts that would prefer to rename static. Of course, resistance is possible and may be successful if the changes are not well executed. (Been there, done that.) Lawry de Bivort snip I would still like to know to what extent my analogy "Biological/Social/Intellectual evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic/subcellular/individual level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic/biological/social forces at a superatomic/supercellular/collective level." is still a valuable reflection of 'reality' (intellectual pattern) and/or a meaningful insight in your opinion. snip Wim Nusselder
Re: MD Relations between levels
Hello everyone From: Wim Nusselder [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MD Relations between levels Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 10:16:19 +0200 Dear Dan, I renamed the subject, but this is a reply to your 20/6 11:24 -0500 posting in the True Libertarians Please Stand Up-thread. In my contribution of 16/6 21:59 +0200 I suggested that the different levels evolve in analogous ways: Biological/Social/Intellectual evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic/subcellular/individual level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic/biological/social forces at a superatomic/supercellular/collective level. You wrote 17/6 10:45 -0500: I believe Lila may contradict your analogy though I find it very intriguing. and quoted Pirsig 'against me'. 18/6 22:35 +0200 I raised 4 defences: 1. If you are intrigued by the analogy, that's enough to let it stand for a while, without bothering about contradictions with other valuable ideas. Let's see what fresh insights come out of your (and mine) intriguedness. 2. Why bother (too much) about contradictions with Pirsig's writings. They are not the supreme authority in interpreting and extending a MoQ. Our own Quality experience is. 3. Pirsig's writings themselves are full of contradictions. they can be read as pointing towards a more inclusive level of truth that can't be adequately expressed in words. It's the paradoxes (apparent contradictions) and metaphors that make us aware of this more inclusive truth. 4. The contradiction may be solved by distinguishing between moral codes under which a level operates (the law of the jungle on the biological level, competition for status or the law according to Lila p. 183 on the social level, competition for veracity on the intellectual level) and the way in which levels evolve. The ways in which levels evolve are analogous, but don't follow a law. Static patterns of value on different levels are just all being pushed/pulled by Dynamic Quality to migrate and sometimes they create patterns on the next-higher level in the process. In your reply of 20/6 11:24 -0500 you quote Pirsig (via Ant McWatt). He indeed closes up an opening to attack on his MoQ when interpreted as merely an intellectual pattern of value, but leaves countless others. In the process it widens the chasm between the empirical and rational modes of knowing (see John's explanation 15:33 +1000 rephrasing Ken Wilber) on the one hand, which in my view are integrated by the MoQ, and the spiritual mode of knowing (Pirsig's a Buddhas level of understanding) on the other hand, because it precludes interpreting DQ as goal of migrating patterns as a metaphor. Pirsig disappoints me in this quote. Hi Wim I remember reading a story in one of Carlos Castenada's books about a thief who waylaid an old man carrying gords full of food and water. The old man called up a vision of a beautiful magical horse and told the thief he could have his choice: the magical horse or the gords containing food and water. The thief thought it a trick, believing if the old man could summon a magical horse on demand that the gords held much more than just food and water. what do you really have in those gords? he asked the old man. Once again the old man told him it was food and water. The thief still did not believe him, so he choose the gords. The old man handed them over and the thief ran off clutching what he thought were magical gords. But when he opened them all he found was food and water, just as the old man had said. He smashed the gords against a rock and bemoaned his lost chance at possessing a magical horse for the rest of his miserable life. I view Ant's Pirsig quote like this: there is indeed a chasm between rational and spiritual modes of knowing that cannot be obliterated by thinking or meditating or zazen. Dynamic Quality is not open to interpretation, only static quality is. We might say Dynamic Quality is behind the interpretation but that is not exactly right either. As we are deeply rational beings we regard any spiritual mode of knowing rationally, but the more we struggle to uncover any rational truth of reality the farther it recedes from our grasp. Rationality's failure to uncover any rational truth that can be substantiated should not be taken as an outright rejection of rationality, however. In the world of everyday affairs rationality fuctions as the highest (and the only) set of intellectual static quality patterns of value available, while from a Buddha's level of understanding (and I've heard it said Buddha nature has us all) rationality is merely a mode of knowing the everyday world. As the children's song goes...life is but a dream...the everyday world is a dream, albeit a rational dream. Sometimes even when all we find is food and water (and what is more powerful than food and drink when one is hungry and thirsty?) when we were
MD Relations between levels
Dear Dan, I renamed the subject, but this is a reply to your 20/6 11:24 -0500 posting in the True Libertarians Please Stand Up-thread. In my contribution of 16/6 21:59 +0200 I suggested that the different levels evolve in analogous ways: Biological/Social/Intellectual evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic/subcellular/individual level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic/biological/social forces at a superatomic/supercellular/collective level. You wrote 17/6 10:45 -0500: I believe Lila may contradict your analogy though I find it very intriguing. and quoted Pirsig 'against me'. 18/6 22:35 +0200 I raised 4 defences: 1. If you are intrigued by the analogy, that's enough to let it stand for a while, without bothering about contradictions with other valuable ideas. Let's see what fresh insights come out of your (and mine) intriguedness. 2. Why bother (too much) about contradictions with Pirsig's writings. They are not the supreme authority in interpreting and extending a MoQ. Our own Quality experience is. 3. Pirsig's writings themselves are full of contradictions. they can be read as pointing towards a more inclusive level of truth that can't be adequately expressed in words. It's the paradoxes (apparent contradictions) and metaphors that make us aware of this more inclusive truth. 4. The contradiction may be solved by distinguishing between moral codes under which a level operates (the law of the jungle on the biological level, competition for status or the law according to Lila p. 183 on the social level, competition for veracity on the intellectual level) and the way in which levels evolve. The ways in which levels evolve are analogous, but don't follow a law. Static patterns of value on different levels are just all being pushed/pulled by Dynamic Quality to migrate and sometimes they create patterns on the next-higher level in the process. In your reply of 20/6 11:24 -0500 you quote Pirsig (via Ant McWatt). He indeed closes up an opening to attack on his MoQ when interpreted as merely an intellectual pattern of value, but leaves countless others. In the process it widens the chasm between the empirical and rational modes of knowing (see John's explanation 15:33 +1000 rephrasing Ken Wilber) on the one hand, which in my view are integrated by the MoQ, and the spiritual mode of knowing (Pirsig's a Buddhas level of understanding) on the other hand, because it precludes interpreting DQ as goal of migrating patterns as a metaphor. Pirsig disappoints me in this quote. The rest of your reply of 20/6 11:24 -0500 confuses me. You seem to address the 3rd of my 4 defences with your quote from Michael Nagler's Reading the Upanishads, but I don't quite see what point you are trying to make regarding the analogy I suggested. Are you trying to say that a MoQ CAN adequately express in words a more inclusive level of truth? Does your evolutionary forces of value guiding each of the four levels being Dynamic and therefore unpredictable contradict my analogy in your opinion? Please explain yourself. With friendly greetings, Wim Nusselder
